BEIRUT – The pullout of Syrian rebels and civilians from their last holdout in the city of Aleppo was delayed on Wednesday, though it wasn’t immediately clear what had caused the delay.
The withdrawal was expected to start early in the early morning hours after the remaining rebel factions the previous day reached a cease-fire deal to evacuate from eastern Aleppo in what is effectively a surrender of the city’s few remaining opposition-run neighborhoods to government control – and a defining moment in Syria’s civil war.
An opposition official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that there were 800 sick and wounded people requiring immediate medical evacuation from eastern Aleppo.
The last-minute deal was mediated by Ankara and Moscow as the rebel enclave rapidly dissolved and ceded more and more territory in the face of the brutal advance by Syrian forces, backed by Russia and assisted by Shiite militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Late on Tuesday, the U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, called for immediate access to the former rebel enclave to confirm the end of military operations and to oversee the safe departure of tens of thousands of civilians and opposition fighters from the last sliver of eastern Aleppo into which they had been squeezed by the advancing government forces.